Newcastle United fans left 'bitter, angry and confused' as Mike Ashley's reign loses identity at St James' Park

Thousands of cardboard signs aimed at voicing displeasure at Alan Pardew
Club legends Steve Howey and Rob Lee speak out on the Magpies
Mike Ashley is accused of using Newcastle as a business marketing tool
Supporters have given up their season tickets at St James' Park
Many fans only still go to games in order meet their friends
Ashley is facing increasing calls to sack Pardew after a poor start
The owner has already thought about hiring David Moyes

Sometimes it takes a football man to sum up a football problem. Asked this week about the life of a Newcastle supporter, the club’s former defender Steve Howey delivered what appears to be a reasonable assessment.

‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘They are bitter, angry and confused.’

At St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon, sentiments will again be clear. A protest aimed at dislodging manager Alan Pardew will involve the distribution of 200 banners and 35,000 cardboard signs before the game with Hull City.

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Newcastle United protest group 'SackPardew.com' have parodied owner Mike Ashley's Sports Direct logo

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Alan Pardew had this pair of official club pictures taken of him during a photocall earlier in the week

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Some supporters have given up on watching their team and decided to not renew cheap season tickets

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Newcastle United owner Ashley (centre) is being encouraged by fans to wield the axe and sack Pardew

Alan Pardew: Fans make it a difficult environment for the players

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Ashley has come under constant heavy criticism from supporters in the north-east

Pardew himself has indicated he may stay clear of trouble, in the dugout. ‘I will just gauge the situation on Saturday,’ he said.

Newcastle have taken 15 points from the last 72 in the Barclays Premier League and are bottom. Given this, and the shambolic nature of a 4-0 defeat at Southampton a week ago, Pardew’s days in the north-east may be numbered.

At Newcastle, though, the future of the manager is only a small part of the story.

No English city mixes beer and football quite so convivially. From the Three Bulls Head on Percy Street to the Trent House on the other side of the ground, football pub crawls are part of life on match day. For some, though, the big bit in the middle of the afternoon has begun to fall by the wayside.

Blogger Jacki Smithfield of The Mag website said recently: ‘Fans tell me they keep going because they meet their mates and don’t want to miss out on the pub and having a catch-up. But some groups go to the pub to watch the match. Some have just had enough.’

Disenfranchised by Mike Ashley’s controversial and unpopular ownership, Saturday afternoon at the match is no longer an essential part of the weekend for some. Gates at local non-League clubs such as Gateshead and Dunston are up and it’s no coincidence. Steve Wraith, a presenter on Toon Talk Radio, said: ‘I have given up my season ticket after 30 years and so have others. I’ve got involved at Dunston. We have won two games in the FA Cup already. That’s more than Newcastle will manage.’

The stats show that attendances remain high at Newcastle. ‘Many Newcastle fans would turn up to watch grass grow,’ added Wraith. However, a visit to the club website reveals that season tickets are available in just about every section of the stadium, while a five-game deal beginning on Saturday is on offer for £152 per year.

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Daryl Jamaat, Fabricio Coloccini model Newcastle's new third kit before their key clash against Hull City

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Newcastle captain Coloccini poses in the new kit, which doesn't carry the club's identity

As author Michael Walker reveals in his new book on north-east football Up There, a visit to one of football’s great cathedrals is not the intoxicating experience it once was. Referring to a home game against Swansea last April, Walker recalls: ‘Up on Level 7 the atmosphere was like a playground.

‘There was a stag party, a hen party, a group of Dutch lads, a group of Scottish lads and a lot of children with parents. There was lots of eating. There were not lots of traditional football supporters and when Swansea won via a last-minute goal there was no outcry.’

Newcastle remains a fervent football city and the club’s core support remains loyal. The edges, though, are becoming frayed and, though Pardew will bear the brunt, Ashley’s critics say it is because of him that the club has become so desperately disconnected from their public. With St James’ Park festooned with 137 adverts for Ashley’s Sports Direct chain at the last count, the accusation is clear.

‘He bought in to football simply to further his sports brand on the back of a famous football club,’ claimed Wraith. ‘The club is a vehicle for his company. Football is about romance and competing and dreaming. For Mike Ashley it’s not. It’s just a business.’

Ashley is estimated to have spent £250m buying Newcastle and lending the club £129m interest-free. However, he admitted at a recent Sports Direct AGM that his company benefits from its connection with the club and a visit to the stadium shop proves interesting.

There is plenty of black and white merchandise but there is also a sizeable section where visitors can buy boots, merchandise and kits from all over the world. By the door is a machine that dispenses autographed photographs from other Premier League clubs. On its screen on Friday a montage included a Sunderland player scoring a goal.

‘It’s not a Newcastle club shop at all,’ said Wraith. ‘It’s a branch of Sports Direct.’

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Newcastle fans hold up a banner with the words 'Pardew is a muppet' during the defeat at Southampton

More than 200 banners and 15,000 posters have been printed ahead of this weekend's match

To the outsider, these details seem trivial but it does feel crass and brash. It is one of many things supporters would like to talk to Ashley about, but he doesn’t communicate.

Newcastle regularly ban newspapers that write things they don’t like while the Supporters Trust has been excluded from a club-run fans forum after a publishing disagreement last year.

‘Fans just want to hear him speak,’ said Howey. ‘That would help and I can understand their frustration.’

When Newcastle sold Andy Cole to Manchester United in January 1995, a judge at the city’s law court adjourned a trial to find out if the bad news really was true. Today, few Newcastle players would be recognisable outside the club itself.

Chief scout Graham Carr’s faith in what is seen as a value for money French market has seen an influx of players from across the channel. The good ones such as Yohan Cabaye and Mathieu Debuchy have been improved and sold on at profit. The others appear to make up numbers.

It would appear Pardew does not sign these players. He refers to a ‘transfer team’ but his role in it does not seem as central as it might. In the summer he wanted to sign Shane Long from Hull but was alone in his view.

The last two players to establish themselves from Newcastle’s youth academy were Steven Taylor in 2004 and Andy Carroll two years later. This is not necessarily Newcastle’s fault. The number of junior leagues listed in the Durham FA handbook has dwindled from 16 to just two since 1983-84.

Nevertheless the lack of local lads in the black and white has served only to further strain Newcastle’s affinity with its football team. The wags say the club’s academy is now a breeding ground for future Blyth Spartans players.

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A 'Pardew Out' banner in the away end at St Mary's as supporters lose patience with the football served up

Meanwhile, fans and former stars accuse Ashley of encouraging foreign players to use his club as stepping stone. ‘Now it’s bitten him on the backside,’ wrote former midfielder Robert Lee in Friday’s Evening Chronicle. ‘That’s why we are bottom of the table.’

The manager talks diplomatically about these issues but the upshot is that his team isn’t good enough.

Banned from the club, the Chronicle invite their readers to score players out of 10 via their website. After last week’s game midfielder Jack Colback came top with 4.1.

Before the game coach John Carver argued with fans holding a ‘Pardew Out’ banner and invited them to the training ground to ‘talk about it’. One man turned up but was sent away by security. Later in the week Carver apologised. ‘I know JC,’ said Howey. ‘He loves the club and I can see why he got angry. There is a time and a place for protests. They can get to players.’

Pardew has looked haunted at times this season. Some accuse him of being Ashley’s puppet but this week he adopted a more defiant tone. He looked ready for a fight and he will need to be. Ashley has already given thought to David Moyes as a replacement and any new manager would find a club in decent financial shape. Newcastle turned a £9.9m post-tax profit last year and their wage bill of £61.7m represents a relatively healthy 64 per cent of turnover.

Ashley, though, would have to prove to a new manager that he was willing to invest in the squad with a view to winning trophies. From that point of view, the evidence is not great. Before this summer’s net spend of around £25m, Newcastle were bottom of last year’s Premier League teams in terms of player investment over the previous five years.

The club told their supporters last season that cup runs were not a priority, as research showed them to be of little ‘benefit’ in the long-term. Of all the bleak news to come out of Tyneside in recent times, that was perhaps the most depressing of all.

On Friday they were stacking the shelves with their new third strip. It will go on sale in the morning and looks nothing like a Newcastle strip should. Perhaps it’s fitting. Newcastle, after all, no longer look, feel nor play much like Newcastle should.